Page 85 of Savage King
And I’m confused.
“You want me to live here?” I ask with a frown. “If you’re tired of me already, you shouldn’t have had me give up my place. I can?—”
I’m yanked into his arms, and he’s kissing the breath out of me. He growls and lifts me onto the island and continues to claim my mouth until we’re both breathless.
“You livewith me,” he says against my lips. “Inourpenthouse, inourbed. You may call me your boyfriend now, but I’ll be getting a promotion to husband soon enough. If we weren’t busy with other things, you’d already be wearing my ring and my last name.”
I blink at him in stunned silence.
“I’m not offering you an apartment, Savage. This is for your sister. I want you to furnish it, decorate it any way you want so it’s ready for her when she comes home. I know you’ll want her nearby, and she can stay upstairs with us for as long as you both need her to, but at some point, she’ll need her own place.”
My head buzzes and my chest aches. Tears drip from my eyes and onto his hands where he’s holding my face, and I lean into him so I can rest my forehead on his.
“You would do this for me?”
“I would doanythingfor you. This is nothing to me. It’s been sitting empty since I bought the building, baby. I’m happy for her to have it.”
“You already gave me the studio.”
“This isn’t about checks and balances,” he replies. “This is simply our life.”
“I don’t think there’s anythingsimpleabout it,” I reply, making him chuckle.
“No, I guess not. Anyway, do whatever you want in here to make sure she’s comfortable, and then she can add whatever she wants or needs later.”
“I don’t know how to thank you for all of this.”
“You never have to thank me.” He frowns down at me and rubs his nose over mine. For an organized crime boss, this manisincrediblyaffectionate. “Come on, let’s go home so I can take care of you and put you to bed.”
“I need a shower.”
“Let’s take a bath.”
“You argue with me a lot,” I inform him as we leave the apartment and head back to the elevator. “Often, in fact.”
“It’s the other way around, Savage.”
“I don’t argue with you.”
He barks out a laugh and leads me into the elevator, then boosts me up against the wall and nibbles his way down my jawline, making my core tighten. “You’re the only one who can, you know.”
That makes me pause and then smile at him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Good.”
“This is so fun,” Natasha says with a smile as we walk through the furniture store, our guards behind us.
Mateo assigned two men to follow me everywhere. Bobby and a guy named Lucky, who is not as easy to smile as Bobby.
And he doesn’tlooklucky, since he only has one eye. But Mateo says these two are among his best, and he trusts them.
Natasha also has two guards, so I feel pretty safe out and about with my new friend.
“You would think I’d be sick of furniture and color swatches and all of this stuff,” Natasha says. “We just finished completely rebuilding the penthouse, and we’ve done some minor work on the house out of town. But I have a knack for it.”
“I’m so glad because it’s daunting to me,” I admit. “I’ve never had the kind of money that I could just furnish a whole place in one go. I want to stick with the basics, and Rose can make it her home later, when she’s settling in.”
